20 August 2010

The First Step To Solving A Problem Is Admitting You Have One.

In answer to this letter writer's nagging question:
Could the devil have his hand in my liking my liberal Episcopal church?
Yes, he could.

And, my dear friend, God is not "a judgmental, legalistic SOB". He has high standards which He calls us to meet, and He loves each of us enough believe that we can, with His help, meet them.

2 comments:

SlaneHill said...

What you want is Jesus. The Jesus of the New Testament doesn't show us a God who is harsh, punishing, aloof, and vindictive. He presents a God possessed of qualities directly contrary to those, a God who loves as God alone can: absolutely, unconditionally, unmitigatedly, freely. The New Testament shows us a God ready to love us the way that as children so many of us wish our parents had loved us: exactly as we are, without regard to rules. Significantly, the only people to whom Jesus showed extreme,displeasure were those authority figures who, in the name of God, judged and condemned others according to whether or not they obeyed The Rules.
Do you ever get the notion people who make these kinds of statements have never actually read the New Testament? Have never actually read the words of Jesus? Have perhaps never actually met the REAL Jesus? And it seems the only people this guy's Jesus doesn't like is Mom and Dad.

Just Me said...

Amen Clifford.

But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

I have always found this to be both deeply convicting and widely humbling. I suppose none of us have the ability to understand the Cross until we understand this command. "Be holy because I am holy" sure doesn't sound anything like "Do whatever you want you crazy loveable kids".